The Story of the Sahara - Sanmao Part V: The Night of the Barren Mountain The Night of the Desolate Mountain

<h1 class= "pgc-h-center-line" > a night of barren mountains</h1>

That afternoon, after Jose got off work, he did not push the door in as usual, but stayed in the car and honked the horn, sounding like "Sanmao, Sanmao." So I put down the brush I was writing and playing and ran to the window to answer him.

"Why don't you come in?" I asked him.

"I know of little turtles and shells with fossils somewhere, are you going?" I jumped up and said, "I'm going, I'm going." "Come out!" Jose was calling again.

"Wait for me to change my clothes, get something to eat, and a blanket." I shouted at the window and ran to get ready.

"Hurry up, don't bring anything!" We came back in two or three hours. "I'm an acute person, give him another urge, just run out the door in a second." Wearing a cloth dress dragged to the instep of his feet, a pair of slippers on his feet, and when he went out, he grabbed a leather wine jug hanging on the door, which contained a liter of red wine. That's all I have.

"All right, let's go!" I jumped on the car mat full of joy.

"More than two hundred and forty miles back and forth, three hours in the car, one hour looking for fossils, and ten o'clock back just in time for dinner." Jose was talking to himself.

I heard more than two hundred miles back and forth, and I couldn't help but look at the sun, which was already westward, and wanted to protest to Jose. But since this person has a car, this latent "car complex" has been special. I'm an O-type person again, and it's not easy to change, so although I think it's a bit inappropriate to run so far at dusk, I didn't say a word of objection.

Along the way, we drove along the road to the south of the town for more than twenty kilometers, and when we reached Yucha Station, there was no more road, and we had to start entering the endless desert.

The sentry went up to the window and looked at it and said, "Ah, it's you guys again." Is it time to go out?"

"Not far away, thirty kilometers around, she wants cacti." Jose said this and drove away.

"Why did you lie to him?" I scolded him.

"Don't cheat, don't give it out, think about it, this time, he gave us so far?"

"In case something goes wrong and you give him the wrong direction and distance, how will they come to us?" I asked him.

"Won't come looking for it, how did a couple of hippies die last time?" He mentioned the uncomfortable thing again, the tragic deaths of those hippies we had seen.

It was almost six o'clock, and although the sun was hanging down, the surrounding area was still bright and dazzling, and the wind was already blowing a little chilly.

The car was driving quickly on the sand, and we walked along the wheel prints that had been driven by others before. The gravel-covered sand is flat and stretches out of sight. There is one in front of the mirage on the left and two in front of the right, as if it were a lake surrounded by small trees.

Nothing could be heard around but the sound of the wind, and the dead and silent earth lay there like a giant, vicious and vicious, and we drove over its quietly unfolding body.

"I thought, one day we'll die in this wasteland." I sighed and looked out the window and said.

"Why?" The car jumped and sped forward

"We run in all day long to disturb it, looking for its fossils, digging up its plants, catching its antelopes, throwing soda bottles, paper boxes, dirty things, and pressing its body with wheels. The desert says it doesn't like it, it wants our lives to pay for it, and that's it - whine, whine. I said as I used my hands to pinch people's necks.

Jose laughed, he liked to listen to my nonsense the most.

At this point I rolled up all the windows of the car, because the temperature had dropped a lot unconsciously.

"Maze Mountain is coming." Jose said.

I looked up at the horizon, and there were a few small black dots in the distance slowly enlarging. It was the only group of mountains within three hundred miles of the vicinity, and in fact it was a large group of tall sand piles scattered in the wasteland of about twenty or thirty miles.

Because these sand piles are formed by the wind, they are all curved and look exactly the same on the outside. They were like a group of semi-circular moons, caught by a large monster hand in the sky and placed in the Sahara Desert, and even stranger, these piles of sand about a hundred meters high, each at a distance of the same distance. If a person enters this mountain, if he is not careful, he will be fascinated and lose his way. I named it Labyrinth Mountain.

The labyrinth mountain was getting closer and closer, and finally the first large sand pile stood in front of it. "Want to go in?" I said softly.

"Yes, after going in, drive to the right for about fifteen miles to the place where you heard there were fossils."

"It's almost half past seven, and the ghost is going to hit the wall." I bit my lip and somehow felt something was wrong in my heart.

"Superstition, where did the ghost come from?" Jose just didn't believe it.

This man was bold and careless, and stubborn as a stone, so we finally drove into the labyrinth of mountains to go around the sand pile. The sun was right behind us, and our direction was to the east.

Labyrinth Mountain did not charm us this time, and ran out in less than half an hour. Further on to the sand there are no car prints at all, and we are not familiar with this area; Even more sitting in an ordinary car that is completely unsuitable for desert driving. I'm always feeling insecure. Jose got out of the car and took a look at the ground

"Go back!" I had no intention of looking for fossils.

"Don't go back." Jose completely ignored me, and the car jumped and continued to drive on this completely unfamiliar ground.

After driving for two or three miles, a low ground appeared in front of us, the color was dark coffee red, and the ground was covered with a layer of lilac purple fog. Tens of millions of years ago this place could have been a wide river.

Jose said, "You can go down here." The car slowly slid down a large slope, he stopped the car, and then got out of the car to look at the ground, I also got out of the car, grabbed a handful of soil to see, it is actually wet mud, not sand, I stood for a moment, I can't think straight.

"Sanmao, you come to drive, I run in front, I gesture to stop, you don't drive anymore."

After saying that Jose began to run. I started the car slowly and kept some distance from him.

"How's it going?" He asked me.

"No problem." I held out my head to answer him.

He ran farther and farther away from me, then turned around and ran backwards while waving his hands to tell me to move forward.

At this time I saw the dirt bubbling up behind Jose, as if it wasn't quite right, and I quickly braked and shouted to him: "Careful, careful, stop!"

I opened the car door and shouted and ran toward him, but Jose had already stepped into this big swamp, and the wet mud did not reach his knees, and he was obviously taken aback, and looked back, and stumbled a few steps, and the mud quickly fell to his thighs, and he struggled a few steps, as if he were going to fall, and somehow the farther he struggled, the farther he went, and there was a great distance between us.

I stood with my mouth open, my whole body frozen in shock, I didn't believe it was true, but the scene in front of me was absolutely true! It's all about what happened in a matter of seconds.

Jose was struggling to lift his feet, and he was about to be eaten by the mud, when I saw that there seemed to be a protruding stone about two meters to his right, and I quickly shouted, "Over there, there is a stone over there."

He also saw the stones, and struggled again, the mud already buried in his waist. I looked at him from a distance, but I couldn't help him, so anxious that my whole body was broken, as if in a nightmare.

Seeing that he had clutched the large boulders protruding from the swamp with both hands, we woke up and immediately ran back to the car to find something to pull him over, but there were only two empty bottles and some joint newspapers in the car except for the wine jug, and there was a tool box in the suitcase, and nothing else.

I ran back to the edge of the swamp to see Jose, and he didn't make a sound and looked at me in a daze.

I ran wildly around, hoping to find a rope, a few planks, or anything else on the ground. But there was nothing around but sand and small pebbles.

Jose hugged the stone, his lower body sunk in the mud, and he would not sink for the time being.

"Jose, you can't find anything to pull you, you put up with it." I shouted to him, about fifteen meters between us.

"Don't be in a hurry, don't be in a hurry." He comforted me. But his voice changed. All around was sand except for the sound of the wind, and it was flying in the air. Ahead is a vast swamp. Behind me was the Labyrinth Mountain, and I turned to look at the sun, which was already about to set. Turning to look at Jose again, he was also looking at the sun.

Sunset and dusk are beautiful, but I can't appreciate it in my mood at the time. The cold phoenix blew over in bursts, and I looked at my thin clothes. Look at Jose soaked in the mud. Looking back at the sun, it was like the big red eyes of a one-eyed monster, and it was about to close.

Within hours. The place was going to be cold to zero degrees, and if Jose couldn't come out, he would freeze to death.

"Sanmao, get in the car and call for someone to come." He shouted at me. "I can't leave you." I was suddenly emotionally agitated.

I can see the direction of the maze mountain in front of me, but drive from the maze mountain to the checkpoint, and then ask people to come back, the sky must have been dark. It was impossible to find the Labyrinth Mountain back to Jose after dark, only to wait for dawn, by which Jose must have frozen to death.

The sun is completely invisible, and the temperature drops quickly, which is an inevitable phenomenon in the desert at night.

"Sanmao, go to the car, you're going to freeze to death." Jose yelled angrily at me, but I crouched down on the shore.

I thought Jose must have been more frozen than I was, and I was so trembling that I didn't want to talk, and Jose hung half of his body on the stone, and as long as he didn't move, I stood up and called him: "Jose, Jose, move, turn your body, be brave--" He heard me call him, and he moved, but it was too difficult for him to move in that situation.

The sky had turned pigeon grey, and my vision was slowly blurred by the twilight. My mind was frantically struggling, and I left him to call someone, and I was in danger of not being able to come back to save him, or I was freezing to death with him

At this time, I saw that there were headlights on the horizon, and I was stunned and jumped up, obviously it was the headlights! It's far, far away, but it's coming in my direction

I yelled, "Jose, Jose, there's a car coming." While going to honk the car's horn, I honked the horn like crazy, turned on the headlights and turned on to attract their attention, and then jumped on the roof of the car, waving my hands and screaming and jumping

Finally they saw it, and the car drove this way.

I jumped out of the roof of the car and ran toward them, and the car was clear, it was a long-distance jeep running in the desert, with a lot of tea leaves on it, and there were three Shaharawi men in the car.

They pulled to a distance of nearly thirty meters from me and stopped, looking at me in the distance, but did not come over.

Of course I understood that they were wary of strangers in this wilderness and refused to come. So I hurried over, and they were getting out of the car. They could see our situation very clearly, and it wasn't completely dark yet.

"Help, my husband fell into the mud, please help drag him up." I ran out of breath and came to them begging hopefully.

They ignored me, but they talked to each other in the vernacular, and I could understand them saying, "It's a woman, it's a woman."

"Hurry up, please help, he's freezing to death." I was still gasping for air.

"We don't have a rope." One of them answered me, and I was stunned because his tone refused to be thousands of miles away.

"You have a turban, and three knots together can be long enough." I tentatively suggested again. I obviously saw that the wooden box tied to the car was a large thick hemp rope.

"How do you know we're going to save him, strange."

"I..." I tried to persuade them again, but seeing that their eyes were very uncertain, and looking up and down at me with ill will, I changed my mouth.

"Well, if you don't save it, you can't force it, forget it." I was about to turn around and leave, and I met a madman in the wilderness.

I was about to leave when one of the three Saharawis suddenly raised his head, and the other jumped behind me, wrapped his right hand around my waist, and touched my chest with his left hand.

I fainted in shock, screaming instinctively, roaring and struggling like a beast in this madman's iron-like arm, but to no avail. He grabbed my body, turned me to face him, and leaned that terrible face toward me.

Jose could see exactly what was happening on the hillside over there, and he cried out, "I killed you."

He let go of the stone and was about to step on the swamp to come out, I looked at it urgently, forgot myself, and shouted to him: "Jose, don't, don't, please. .

The three Saharawis gave me a cry to pay attention to Jose, and I faced the madman who was holding me, and with all my strength, I raised my feet to kick him in the lower abdomen, and he did not prevent me from this fatal kick, screamed in pain and squatted down, of course, let go of me. I turned and fled, the other one took a big stride to chase me, I crouched down and grabbed two handfuls of sand and threw them into his eyes, he covered his face with both hands, I took advantage of the gap in seconds here, kicked off the slippers on my feet, and ran barefoot in the direction of the car.

The three of them didn't run to chase, they got into the jeep and drove slowly toward me.

I think they must have misjudged one thing at the time, thinking that only Jose could drive. And I can't escape running around like this, so I use the car to chase me slowly.

I jumped into the car, turned on the engine, glanced at Jose, who was still at the edge of the rock, and felt a throbbing pain as if he had been whipped.

"Run, run, sanmao, run." Jose yelled at me nervously

I didn't have time to say anything to him and slammed the gas pedal hard. The car jumped up, the jeep had not yet arrived, and I had rushed up the hill and flew forward. The jeep tried to stop me, and I hit it like a "suicide plane" with the car. Instead, they quickly dodged away.

The throttle had been stepped on to the end, but the lights of the jeep could not be avoided, they bit my car and did not let me go, my heart was so nervous that I jumped out, and people gasped as if they were about to suffocate.

As I drove, I pressed the locks on all four sides of the car door, and my left hand groped behind the saddle, and the spring knife I had in my hand got it.

The labyrinth mountain came, I rushed in without thinking, a sand pile came, I went around, the jeep followed, I frantically walked through these sand piles, the jeep sometimes lagged a little behind, sometimes it crashed head-on, in short, no matter how hard I tried to drive, I could not escape it.

Then it occurred to me that unless I turned off my headlights, the jeep could always follow me, and if I ran out of gas, I would have to die.

Thinking of this, I slammed the throttle hard, around the half-mountain, and when the jeep had not yet followed, I immediately turned off the lights, the car did not slow down, I firmly grasped the steering wheel, and made an emergency turn to the left, that is, not to flee to the front, to turn back to the jeep to chase the sand pile behind.

The curved sand pile had a large shadow at night, and I stopped the car as close as possible to the sand pile and opened the door on the right. Climbing out of there, a little distance from the car, with a switchblade in my hand, how I wish the car was black. Or coffee, dark green can be, but it is a white.

I saw the jeep lose its way, it kept spinning in front of me, it didn't think I'd hide, so it sped around a few times and sped ahead.

I ran a few steps along the sand, the jeep really drove away, I was not afraid of it driving back, and climbed to the top of the sand pile to look, the lights of the jeep finally completely disappeared in the distance.

I slid down the hill back into the car and found myself covered in cold sweat, and waves of black shadows surged up in front of me, as if I were about to vomit. I climbed out of the car again and lay on the ground to freeze myself awake, I must not collapse, Jose was still in the swamp

After waiting for a few more minutes, I was completely calm. Look at the sky, the sign of Ursa Major is very bright, hanging in the sky like a dipper, the little bear star is under it, like a diamond pointing the way, and the labyrinth mountain is easier to identify at night than when the sun is in the middle.

I was thinking, I can go west out of the labyrinth, out of the maze and then go north a hundred and twenty miles or so, should be able to run into the checkpoint, I went for help, and then brought someone back, that faster will not be tonight, then Jose - he - I covered my face with my hand and could not think anymore.

I stood nearby for a while, and there was nothing but sand to give me directions, but the mark must be left here, and I could come back early tomorrow morning to find it.

I was so cold that my whole body hurt so I had to run back to the car. I accidentally saw the back seat of the car, the seat cushion can be removed in its entirety, I immediately went to open the toolbox, took out the screwdriver to remove the screws, while pulling the seat cushion with both hands, I actually removed it.

I dragged the cushion out and threw it on the sand so I could come back tomorrow to find a little better. I got in the car and turned on the headlights, ready to drive in the direction of the checkpoint, my heart has been controlling myself, don't be emotional, drive back to see Jose better than find someone to save him, I did not leave him.

The headlights shone on the big black cushion on the sand that I had thrown aside, and I had already started the car.

At this time, I seemed to be pricked by a needle and jumped up, and the car cushion was so big and flat that it should not sink. I was shaking with excitement and quickly went down to pick up the car mat again, still throwing it in the back seat. Turn the front of the car and drive in the direction of the swamp.

In order to avoid getting lost, I slowly drove along my car prints, so that I took a lot of detours, and sometimes I couldn't find the car prints at all, and when I drove back to the edge of the swamp, I didn't dare to get too close to the car, only to shine the headlights on it.

The mud lay quietly in the darkness, just as before, occasionally bubbling, and there was silence in the mud, and I could not see Jose or the stone that protruded.

"Jose, Jose..." I pushed the car door and ran along the swamp, shouting his name. But Jose was really gone. I shook and ran up and down the edge of the swamp like a madman, shouting wildly.

Jose was dead, must be dead, and the echo of terror struck me in my heart. I'm almost certain the swamp has swallowed him up. This fear makes people crazy. I fled back into the car, lying on the wheel shaking like a fallen leaf in the wind.

I don't know how long later, I heard a very faint voice calling to me: "Sanmao..... Sanmao..." I looked up in a panic, I couldn't see anything in the darkness, turned on the headlights, drove the car a little bit, and heard clearly again, it was Jose who was calling me. I drove the car for almost a minute, Jose was illuminated by the headlights, he was still by the stone, but I parked in the wrong place, causing a scare.

"Jose, hold on, I'll pull you out right away."

He held the stone in both hands, his head resting in his arms, and did not move under the headlights. I pulled the car cushion out and ran down the mud half-dragged and half-hugged, running to the place where the wet mud wrapped around my calves, before throwing the large piece of rear saddle cushion out forcefully, and it floated on the mud without sinking.

"Spare tire!" I said to myself, and dragged the spare tire out from under the lid of the car. I ran to the edge of the swamp, stepped on the car mat, and threw the spare tire into the mud, so that I could get closer to Jose.

It was cold, stabbing me like hundreds of small knives, probably less than zero, but I was frozen and about to fall. I can't stop, I have a lot to do quickly, I can't curl up in the car.

I shook the right side of the car with my jack and started removing the front tires. Quick, fast, I kept pushing myself, and I was going to pull Jose out before I could move my hands and feet.

I got off the front tire and went to remove the back tire, I never did it so quickly on weekdays, but this time it was only a few minutes to remove it all.

I looked at Jose, and he froze there motionlessly.

"Jose, Jose." I threw a small stone the size of a palm to hit him and ask him to wake up, but he was no longer able to do it.

I ran downhill with the removed tires, jumped over the floating pads, spare tires, and threw the front tires in my hand in the mud, so that I ran back and forth again, and three tires and a seat cushion were floating on the thin mud.

I stood on the last tire with my feet apart, Jose and I still had some distance, and his eyes looked at me sadly.

"My clothes!" I remembered that I was wearing a cloth dress that grew to the ground, and the skirt was a large round skirt. I ran back to the car quickly, took my clothes off my head, cut four wide strips of cloth with a knife, tied a knot, tied a vise to the front of the strip, and with this large pile of straps, I ran quickly to the tires in the mud.

"Jose, hey, I threw it over, you grab it." I told Jose to pay attention, and the cloth belt in his hand was slowly swirled by me, little by little, and before it could fall, it was caught by Jose.

As soon as his hand grabbed the strap on my side, I suddenly breathed a sigh of relief, fell on the tire and cried, at this time the cold also knew, the hunger also knew, but the panic was over.

After crying a few times, thinking of Jose, and quickly pulling him, but as soon as the person relaxed, the strength disappeared, and how to pull did not see Jose move.

"Sanmao, the strap is tied to the tire, I pull it myself." Jose said in a dumb voice that I was sitting on the tire, Jose pulled the strap little by little, and saw that he was getting closer, and I untied the belt and tied it to the next tire to give him a closer look, because depending on the situation, Jose did not have the strength to jump ashore between the tires, and he froze for too long.

When Jose came ashore, he fell down. I would still run, and I quickly ran back to the car to get the wine jug, which was a lifesaver, and poured several sips of wine on him. I was anxious for him to get into the car, only to drop him first, and then go to the mud to pick up the tires and pads and come back.

"Jose, move your hands and feet, Jose, move, move, move..." I shouted back to Jose as I loaded the wheel, he was crawling on the ground, his face as white as plaster, terrible.

"Let me come." He climbed to the side of the car, and I was tightening the screw caps of the rear tires. "You go in the car, quick!" I threw away the screwdriver and climbed into the car myself.

I poured Jose another drink, turned on the heating in the car, cut the wet pants barrel with a knife, wiped his feet hard with my cut clothes straps, and poured the wine on his chest to wipe it for him.

It seemed that after a century, his face began to look a little bloody, and his eyes opened and closed again.

"Jose, Jose." I gently slapped him in the face and called out to him.

After another half an hour, he was fully awake, opened his eyes, looked at me like a ghost, and stammered, "You, you...."

"Me, what am I?" I was startled by his expression.

"You..... You suffered. "He held me in his arms and shed tears." What do you say, I didn't suffer!" Inexplicably, I slipped out of his arm.

"You were caught by those three people?" he asked.

"Nothing! I escaped, I escaped earlier. "I said it out loud." So, why are you naked, what about your clothes?"

It occurred to me that I was wearing only underwear and was covered in muddy water. Jose was obviously also frozen mad, and it wasn't until so long before he saw me undressed.

On the way home, Jose lay on the side, and both of his legs had to go to the doctor immediately, thinking that he was frostbitten. It was late at night, and the labyrinth mountain was ghostly left behind by me, and I was being led north by the constellation of Ursa Minor.

"Sanmao, do you still want fossils?" Jose asked me with a groan.

"Yes." I answered him briefly. "What about you?" I asked him. "I want more." "When will I come back?" Tomorrow Bian noon. ”